On Thursday, an Algerian court sentenced the former Energy Minister, Chakib Khalil, to 20 years in prison, with the support of the international arrest warrant issued against him, following up on several corruption-related charges.
The Sidi M’hamed Court in the capital, in the same case, convicted several former ministers and officials; Among them are the former Minister of Public Works, Ammar Ghoul, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohamed Bedjaoui, and two former heads of the oil and gas giant Sonatrach.
The Algerian court sentenced the other convicts to penalties ranging from 5 to 10 years in prison, after they were pursued on charges related to corruption, the most important of which was “the waste of public money during the conclusion of deals with foreign institutions.”
According to the APS, it was decided to confiscate the funds, seizures, and real estate property seized in the framework of this case, with the seizure of the property of the acquitted defendants lifted.
In 2013, the Algerian judiciary issued an international arrest warrant against Khalil as part of an investigation into his receiving commissions from a subsidiary of the Italian energy group Eni for granting work contracts in Algeria, a scandal that was the subject of several trials in Italy and Algeria.
After his asylum in the United States, Chakib Khalil returned to Algeria in 2016 after the charges against him were dropped, but he left the country again when he was pursued again after Bouteflika stepped down on April 2, 2019 under pressure from the protest movement and the army, according to AFP.